


Little Boy

by lmontyy



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Canon Lesbian Character, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Ellie - Freeform, F/F, Fluff, Future Fic, Happy Ending, Lesbian Character, Love, Marriage, Married Life, Old Married Couple, TLOU, The Last of Us - Freeform, True Love, Useless Lesbians, and they get married, and theyre just so cute together, dina - Freeform, dina x ellie, ellie and dina, ellie and dina adopt a kid, ellie williams, ellie x dina, the last of us 2, the last of us part 2 - Freeform, the last of us part ii, the last of us part two, tlou 2, tlou part 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22607083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lmontyy/pseuds/lmontyy
Summary: All those years of disciplining herself – teaching herself not to attach herself to something she could so easily lose – and here is this little one-year-old boy in Dina’s arms that she knows is theirs. And while part of her is fighting the attachment to this boy, the other part is so deeply in love with him that it hurts her chest.
Relationships: Dina & Ellie (The Last of Us), Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 177





	Little Boy

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to "Wait A Minute!" by WILLOW while writing most of this fic, so I highly recommend listening to it while reading!

Waking up every morning was blissful. There was never a morning since she walked into her life that Ellie hadn’t woken up, alive, ready, and welcoming to the world. She could remember every milestone with memory clear as day. All of their first times, all of their embraces, all of their intimacy.

Ellie would lay in her bed every morning, the sun peering in from the window, and she would just let her mind roam. Whether the girl was beside her in bed or not, she would just stare at the ceiling and drift away into her memories.

Their first kiss – that night, on the dancefloor. They were nineteen, and they were stupid and maybe just needy and desperate. But what sparked when their lips collided, what sparked when she pulled her closer and just sunk deeper into their kiss. It sparked the greatest love she’d ever experienced in her life. The year that she was taken by the people who wanted her for her blood and her brain – she remembered never feeling a greater hatred for anyone than she felt for the ones who had taken her lover away.

When she got her back, they rejoiced with a kiss, and embrace, another kiss, and a night of intimacy and love for each other. Tears fell and fears of losing each other again were shared.

Three years later, Ellie proposed. And Dina became her wife.

After living together since her capture, Ellie and Dina married in Jackson’s center, with their whole community behind them, supporting them. Of course, there were the few that couldn’t bring themselves to agree, and showed prejudice to the couple. But they didn’t want them at their wedding anyway.

The dress was beautiful. Dina looked like a queen if Ellie had ever seen one. It wasn’t as extravagant as the ones she’d seen in pictures from before the outbreak, but the town seamstress and tailor, Jemma, had done her absolute best to recreate something just like those ones. And she had thoroughly succeeded, for the waist-fitted frilly white dress was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen Dina in.

Her suit was borrowed – it was a spare that Jemma had stored with a few others in the back, ones they had gathered up and collected over years of scavenging the area and nearby villages and towns that were abandoned or overrun or infested with bandits and robbers. It was a dark grey suit with a red tie tucked in. Dina had expressed how much she appreciated how well it shaped her, and she drooled over the way she looked in it.

Everything was quiet – just the two of them, living in a house together, doing their duties every day, and everything worked as it should’ve.

And then, one day, Tommy came back from a patrol with a little boy wrapped in his arms.

It looked like something out of a pre-outbreak movie. Tommy was at the gate, assault rifle dangling at his side, held onto by a strong hand, and in his other arm, he held a young toddler boy who was safely tucked into his neck and shoulder.

Ellie hadn’t found out until she got home from her route. She came through the gates on her horse and with the rest of her crew and everyone acted as if everything was normal. They took their horses to their pegs in the stables, dropped off their weapons, signed out. Nobody breathed a word of the boy that had come through the gates.

They had always talked about a family. It was never achievable, of course, due to their circumstances and the world they lived in. It wasn’t like what Joel had described; they couldn’t just walk into an adoption home or an orphanage and pick out a poor, parentless baby. It was hard, but they had accepted the fact that the chances of creating a family was few and far between. The idea of a donor had come up, but Dina wasn’t comfortable mothering a baby that wasn’t Ellie’s. So, the only option left was adoption, but as they’d discussed, that notion was impossible.

It was hard to accept, but they did. They moved on. After all, they had each other. They were willing to make the absolute best of life together, even if it meant they couldn’t have children.

So, when Ellie opened the door to her house that night and saw Dina there, on the floor, with a giggling toddler, Ellie’s heart nearly split in two.

***

It definitely took some getting used to. After all, Ellie wasn’t exactly a baby expert. Even in her mid-twenties, far past the immaturity of adolescence, she knew she wasn’t the ideal parent. She was loud, rude, she had a terrible mouth, and she wasn’t exactly the kindest to everyone all of the time. That’s part of the reason why Dina loved her wife so much.

Parenting was hard. Ellie knew that, but it was only until she had a toddler running around her and Dina’s house that she truly understood that. And even though she loved that kid more than anything, there were definitely some things Ellie found challenging and unpleasant to do, like–

“Dina!” She called from the living room.

“Yes, darling?” Dina’s head came from around the corner of the kitchen, an amused smile on her face.

“I really don’t want to change this kid’s diaper.”

Dina’s chuckling was one of the most beautiful and soothing sounds she’d ever heard, but it definitely didn’t change the intense want to be clean and as far away from his heavy diaper as possible.

“Why not?” She asked, crossing her arms and leaning a shoulder against the doorframe. She had the cute little apron Ellie bought her on as she prepared dinner.

“Because,” Ellie pouted, causing him to smile in the most adorable baby way beneath her. “It’s gross.”

“It’s gross?” Her eyebrow shot up in amusement.

“Yeah,” Ellie’s nose wrinkled as the smell became more prevalent. Ellie was kneeled down beside him, while he was sitting upright on his bottom, a toy car in his hands. His little blonde hairs were so thin and soft atop his head.

Another lovely chuckle. “He’s one, babe,” she reminded in a joking, scolding way. “Would you rather him change himself?”

“Yeah,” Ellie said in a deadpan voice. The boy had started climbing into her lap and she leaned back in surprise. “That would be ideal, actually.”

Rolling her eyes and laughing, Dina brushed off her apron and came forward. “Alright,” she groaned, leaning down to pick him up. “Come on, you big baby.” Ellie wasn’t sure if she was referring to her, the baby, or both.

Looking down to stick her tongue out at her, Dina strutted away, baby in her arms, towards the bedroom where they held the diaper stash along with clean wipes, powder, and the rest of his care supplies. Ellie could only watch after her smug wife, her jaw dropped in amused disbelief.

Just another typical day in her crazy life.

***

Ellie was always told never to name anything. If you named something, you grew attached, and you couldn’t afford that.

When she was younger, on her travels with Joel, they encountered many different creatures. Small and large, adults and babies. And every time she found one that was capable of being her pet, her friend, Joel shot it down. Like the kitten they stumbled upon, abandoned in a bush. He was gray and white striped, a tabby.

“If you name it, you’re gonna wanna keep it,” he told her.

“Yeah? And?” She challenged him every time. The kitten was buoyant and content in her arms.

He would sigh and shake his head. “Ellie,” he would say. “One day you’re gonna realize there’s no use in namin’ these things.”

“Why not?” Her stubborn, fourteen-year-old self would demand. “I don’t see what’s wrong with giving him a _name._ Everyone deserves a name.” She bounced the kitten in her arms, looking down at him. “Even this guy.”

“Ellie,” Joel was still stern. “Just put it down, will you?”

“No,” she insisted. “We can’t just leave him.”

“We can and we will,” He wasn’t asking anymore. He reached to take the kitten out of her hands but she pulled away. “Look at all the run-ins we’ve had.” He was impatient now. “All of the clickers? The hunters? You think it would’ve survived all of that?”

Ellie was quiet, hugging the kitten tight to her chest.

“We woulda had to leave it or you woulda died trying to keep that thing alive,” he scolded. “It ain’t worth keeping, okay? Just leave him where you found him, leave him so water, and let’s be on our way.”

“Okay,” she whispered reluctantly. She was disappointed, but she knew it was for the best.

The kitten chirped when she placed him back on the ground. When Joel turned and began walking away, she called after him, as an idea popped into her mind. In the closest house nearby – which had been maybe a few hundred feet – and found a small entrapment, a little, empty sandbox, which she improvised by placing more boards around it to reinforce it. Joel didn’t stop her – he knew it meant something to her to secure the kitten, and it was clear he felt bad for making Ellie leave it. It took minutes to make a little cage for him. On a loose plank of wood from a broken fence of the backyard, and carved words into with her knife.

When they left, she was only thinking about the little kitten, entrapped in the boards and empty sandbox. T She watched quietly out the window of the truck, the world zipping past her, and all she could think about was him. She hoped that someone would find him. Hoped they’d read his cry for help that she wrote out for him on the board.

_‘Help! Abandoned kitten. Needs food, water, and a home. His name is Bill. Please take good care of him.’_

***

Naming the boy was even harder. Naming him meant that they were personalizing him – that boy would officially be theirs.

She learned to grow very distant from any living thing. She learned to reserve herself and her emotions to protect herself. Even though it took years, Ellie had become quite good at showing no emotion, nor letting it get to her. Even something as innocent and vulnerable as a baby boy at about one year of age, one she would be taking care of, one that she knew both she and Dina had wanted for years, she fought the attachment.

All those years of disciplining herself – teaching herself not to attach herself to something she could so easily lose – and here is this little one-year-old boy in Dina’s arms that she knows is theirs. And while part of her is fighting the attachment to this boy, the other part is so deeply in love with him that it hurts her chest.

She just couldn’t help herself. The perfect name came to her one day in the summer.

“Sam,” Ellie said in what was just above a whisper.

Dina looked to her with confusion, missing the name that passed her lips.

“I think we should name him Sam,” she repeated, louder this time.

A smile grew on her face and Ellie couldn’t help but follow suit as the baby bounced in Dina’s thin arms.

“I think we should name him Sam, too,” she nodded in agreement, nuzzling the boy close to her face and prompting a giggle out of him. His chubby little hand reached up to poke at the freckles on Dina’s face, as she scrunched her nose which made him smile even more.

Ellie nearly broke at the sight.

***

The annual dance was on the rise again that winter ­– the same one where Dina and Ellie shared their first kiss nearly seven years ago. And what better thing to do then bring their one-and-a-half-year-old son to the dance to celebrate for the first time with the rest of the community.

Dressing a baby boy was among one of the most frustrating things to do, beside the diaper changing.

“Dina!” Ellie called.

She must’ve been waiting for the usual cry for help because she came in no more than a second later, opened up to the scene of Ellie, all nicely dressed, hovering over the bed with Sam sitting back, crying and shouting.

“Yes, my love?” She purred, amusedly as Sam started to fuss more rather than cry.

“I really don’t wanna get this kid dressed.”

And then came the laugh. This had been the routine ever since Sam had come into their lives. Ellie claiming she can handle taking care of him, her failing to take care of him, and then calling Dina to step in and take care of him for her.

Dina was definitely the better, more diligent mother. She was naturally maternal and very good with kids. Sam took a liking to her immediately, and once Ellie opened up, Sam was obsessed with her.

“That’s called parenting, darling,” Dina teased, stepping forward to take over.

“Too much work,” Ellie joked back. “You can do it.”

Rolling her eyes and planting a kiss on her wife’s lips, Dina leaned in to take Sam’s shirt off and get him into his little button down. Immediately, Sam started crying and kicking, prompting Dina to take a step back.

“Here, you’re terrible at this,” Ellie goaded, leaning over to pet her hand over Sam’s soft, baby blonde hair, stroking him softly. Like magic, he quit fussing completely, and almost started dozing off.

“Figures,” Dina groaned. “I do all of the work for him and he loves you more.”

“Naturally.”

“Smartass,” she retaliated with a grin. “You can change him then.”

“Maybe I should,” Ellie challenged. “You sure can’t do it.”

Dina, who was heading for the door, stopped dead in her tracks and turned to glare at her wife as menacingly as she could. “Is that a challenge, Williams?”

“I think it is, Williams,” Ellie shot back with cock of her head, reminding Dina that she could use the exact same name to tempt her with.

“Don’t try me, Ellie,” she smirked. “I’ll win this fight.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

Needless to say, Dina won.

Her tickling technique always worked. Ellie was on the floor with tears in her eyes before she could even process Dina changing the baby. By the time she recuperated, Sam was all dressed up.

“That is so not fucking fair,” Ellie grumbled, panting from laughter.

“It is, too,” Dina was snarky as she crossed her arms. “You ready to go now, carpet?”

“Carpet?” She scoffed, shooting an eyebrow up her forehead.

“Look at you.”

Anything that was hidden in that carpet ­– dirt, dust, hair – was now covering Ellie’s nice flannel and jeans.

“Oh, you gotta be kidding me,” she grumbled.

Laughing, Dina gestured to the bathroom, signaling to her to get herself cleaned up and ready to go.

“You’re gonna regret that,” Ellie threatened, defeated, head hanging as she stalked off to their master bathroom.

“I’m sure I will.”

***

It was beautiful. Lights covered the fences, the walls, the rafters of the church. Those typical string lights Tommy had become oddly obsessed with since the outbreak. The same ones that were on every street in Jackson.

The snow reflected the yellow tint of the lights along the posts on the street. The lights never failed to fascinate Dina. Ellie’s favorite thing every winter was watching Dina’s face in wonder, her smile and eyes just as bright as the lights all around. And when she saw Sam reacting the same way as her wife, her heart broke.

Sam was completely fascinated, overtaken by the brightness around him. Holding Dina’s hand diligently, he tried pulling a little to break away. His little vest hugged him tightly, his boots making the smallest, cutest little prints in the ground. Ellie was completely captivated by the view of her wife holding her son’s hand and both of them marveling at the lights in the dark winter night. Dina pointing towards the posts that had string lights wrapping around it, spiraling downward on the wood. It was sight she only ever dreamed of.

“The lights, Sammy!” Dina exclaimed. “Look at all the lights!” she gasped as she brought him closer, still smiling.

Ellie started forward near the pole. She pulled one of the lines of string a tad just to stretch it out slightly, allowing Sam to hold it. When Dina and Sam made it over to the lights, Sam immediately reached out and touched the light, gently, with his little chubby fingers.

“Whoa!” Dina exaggerated for him. “What is that, Sam?” Ellie loved her baby talk.

Sam fussed and giggled, toying with the light in his hands. The church was just a block over, and people were passing by admiring the little boy.

The little boy gave the whole community hope. He lit up the faces of the people passing by. They watched him play with the lights and in his hands, he held their hope for humanity.

The little boy gave Joel hope. He was a changed man since Sam came into their lives. He helped him realize there’s beauty in naming things – there’s beauty in the attachment to other living souls.

The little boy gave Dina hope for a family, he gave her the reality that they could be happy and live like the people before the outbreak.

And the little boy gave Ellie hope that everything was really worth it, and love could exist in the smallest, most vulnerable forms. And he was just the embodiment of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!  
> This is another of the Tumblr requests I received for these two.
> 
> My tumblr handle is @lmontyy, and I take any and all requests, (so long as they're not unreasonable or crazy!) but I'm very easygoing when it comes to writing, and do enjoy writing for others. Any and all questions or inquiries may be directed to my inbox here or on tumblr. :)
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


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